Tacoma city council passes Climate Commission ordinance
Tacoma, WA – Dozens of community members gathered at the Tacoma City Council chambers on Tuesday, December 17, in preparation for the city of Tacoma’s vote to pass the city’s first Climate and Sustainability Commission into law.
“It’s great that the city council is planning to pass an ordinance enshrining the Climate Commission into law, but as it stands there are some serious problems with it,” said Haze Bender, a rank-and-file member of Teamsters Local 174. “As written, the commission is only advisory, has no real power, and all members are appointed, rather than elected.”
“We’ve been here many weeks, and a lot of our members never miss council meetings,” said Catelynn Henion, a local activist with Climate Alliance of the South Sound (CASS). “I strongly believe that this Climate Commission wouldn’t even be an ordinance here tonight if there weren't so many people that organized for it.”
The city’s public comment section of the meeting opened with a statement calling to delay the vote on the Climate Commission until the language could be updated to match community demands. The comment was met with resounding applause and cheers from the audience. After the applause, Mayor Victoria Woodards said: “During public comment we ask that in these chambers you refrain from cheering after a speaker has spoken.”
One attendee, a letter carrier with the NALC Local 79, Bryce Phillips shouted from his seat: “It’s our constitutional right!”
Mayor Woodards responded, “This is not a back-and-forth. If you want to be respected, then you must respect the rules of this council. If we can’t abide by the rules of the council, then we won’t have public comment tonight.”
Dozens of community members testified in favor of a strong commission and implored the council to delay the vote until the language could be changed. Despite the mayor’s threats, indigenous community members in the audience continued to beat hand drums at the end of supportive comments.
“I have been an educator in Tacoma for over ten years, and the youth are experiencing the worst of pollution, especially in the South End,” said Phil Harty. “The commission must have the ability to veto permits and projects based on consultation with local tribes and preservation of native ecosystems.”
“By empowering a stronger climate commission, Tacoma can address its urgent environmental challenges and improve public health outcomes. Instead of mega warehouses, we should be planting more trees” said Stephanie Reasor. “Tacoma has the lowest tree coverage of any city in western Washington.”
“The climate commission needs to actually be able to protect the environment, but right now it’s just a little band-aid,” said Zipporah Jarmon.
“Systems are designed to produce the outcome that they get, and we are in a climate catastrophe because our system was designed to create it,” said Rachel Ostheller. “Your commission leaves the power in the hands of that very same system, unchecked. Essentially your commission is politely asking the system to do better, but we don’t have the luxury to be polite anymore.”
Despite earlier threats from the mayor, Phillips gave a powerful testimony that resulted in resounding applause from the audience, “There’s a lot of things I like about Tacoma, but let’s be real: this city is known as a toxic waste dump, as the place where the most exploitive, extractive, pollutive garbage goes. It’s treated as a garbage dump by the capitalist class. The toadies on city council say ‘oh hey, put your toxic waste dump here, put your big warehouse here, put your big polluting thing here, our people are poor, are people won’t say anything, this isn’t Seattle, this is Tacoma.’ So I’d like to ask: what kind of legacy do you want to leave? Do you want your legacy to be that we made some feel-good statements?”
Phillips continued, “Or you want your legacy to be that you turned Tacoma around, started to make this into a world-class city, started to make this the beautiful city that it can be, and that you started listening to the residents, to Indigenous people, to labor, and to our communities that are demanding that you put some actually teeth in this legislation and stop playing games.”
After public comment ended and dozens of activists, scientists, indigenous people, and union members testified in favor of a strong climate commission and delaying the vote, the council blazed through the rest of the agenda.
When they reached the vote to adopt the Climate Commission ordinance, it became clear there would be no amendments. Before the city clerk could call the vote, an organizer with CASS, Aife Pasquale, rose from their seat and chanted “Liberate the people!” Dozens more rose from their seats and responded, “Liberate the planet!” The chanting continued as activists moved to the front of city council chambers and linked arms in an attempt to block the vote.
In an unprecedented move, Mayor Woodards insisted the clerk call the vote despite the disruption. Council members had to shout into their microphones in order for their votes to be heard above the chanting community members gathering at the front. The ordinance passed with eight voting yes and a single council member, Jamika Scott of District 3, abstaining. After the vote, Woodards immediately moved to adjourn the meeting.
As council members shuffled out the back door and police lingered at the periphery, the community continued to rally, producing a megaphone and sharing speeches, songs and poems on a variety of issues.
“City council chose to end the meeting early and cancel community forum, so we held our own community forum,” said Gemini Gnull, member of the Osage Nation and organizer with CASS.
Community forum is the section at the end of council meetings where constituents can talk about anything, even if the subject of their comment is not on the agenda.
Addressing the crowd in chambers, Pasquale said, “Our actions are not drawn from thin air, and our demands are not drawn from thin air. We use historic examples from successful movements to guide our actions. We work with elder activists who have put everything on the line to make a better world. We synthesize ideas from the community and represent their felt needs. And then the council silences us! This is repression! The council is too comfortable taking away our rights. When the council ignores us and silences us, we are forced to escalate.”
“It’s incredibly disappointing that despite months of calls, emails, meeting requests and testimony at council, the city pushed through this ordinance unamended,” said Gnull. “But the road to victory is paved with losses, and tonight we showed the power of our community, of the alliance between labor and Black and indigenous people. We showed that the people of Tacoma are ready to fight.”
“I love Tacoma. I was born and raised here. I love the people of Tacoma” said Pasquale. “This is a climate emergency, and we need to act like it. There is no future unless we start fighting.”